


a little sunlight creeping in

by impossibletruths



Series: until the dawn [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Pure Unadulterated Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Some mornings dawn gentle and kind.





	a little sunlight creeping in

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the 30 days of domestic fluff challenge. Originally posted to [tumblr](https://cityandking.tumblr.com/post/180602287147/a-little-sunlight-creeping-in)

Of the two of them, she is the earlier riser. He does not sleep in all that much later, but she has a certain kinship with the dawn and finds herself rising to meet it no matter how late she has been up the night before. It is not always a blessing, especially on the days when she wakes sandy eyed with exhaustion and sick-hollow with the dread of facing another dragging day. Sometimes, though, it is a kindness to wake so early, to watch the first rosy beams spill over the mountains and turn the sky to a quilt of color, oranges and blues and pinks and yellows dusting the castle and the camp in the valley below as gentle as a kiss.

The best mornings are those when she can spare a few minutes to watch him sleep.

The light through her wide windows paints him in soft shades of pink today, grey of the predawn creeping towards color, and he is soft with it, gentle in his sleep. His hair curls in tight, mused ringlets at his temples and his lips part as he breathes, slow and steady. He is a warm weight at her side, careful to keep his distance until she breaches the space between them. She has time to study him like this, the shadow of days-old stubble on his jaw and the slight upturn of his nose and the silver sliver of a scar through his upper lip. There is another at his temple, nearly invisible, and her fingers itch to brush along it. 

She restrains herself for fear of waking him. He sleeps poorly enough. He deserves a few extra minutes of rest, of comfort, of peace before the day begins and wrings it all out of him afresh.

As she watches, the sunlight creep across the foot of their bed and his breathing changes as he begins to stir. His lips quirk slightly, and his head tilts in her direction, and she smiles to match him, even if he cannot see it, shifting closer to his warmth beneath the blankets.

“What time is it,” he mumbles, eyes cracking open, heavy-lidded with the weight of lingering sleep. She presses a quiet, warm kiss against his temple, against the near invisible scar there. He breaths out slowly.

“Early still,” Vesper murmurs. “You can sleep a little longer.”

He hums, eyes fluttering shut again. She watches his breathing steady and sighs. The bed is wide, and warm, and comfortable––it is an indulgence, truthfully, but one she had not made much of an effort to talk Josephine out of––but she has work to do. She presses a last, gentle kiss to his forehead and starts to get up.

From beside her, Cullen’s arm snakes around her waist. She blinks down at him.

“If I can sleep a little longer, so can you,” he says, eyes still closed. Her expression go soft as she looks down at him. His hand is warm against her hip even through the cotton of her nightshirt.

“I have work to do,” she replies, but her heart is not in it. He huffs a little and tugs her down, and she goes willingly, curling up in the hollow of his side. He breathes out long and slow, and his breath tickles. “Cullen…”

“A few more minutes,” he mumbles, and he sounds so very much like one of his own tired soldiers that she has to laugh, quiet to not disturb him and this delicate bubble of peace.

“Alright,” she agrees, shifting closer. His arm wraps around her as she lays her head on his shoulder, hair coming loose from the braid she sleeps in. The steady rise and fall of his chest is a lullaby, his heartbeat the melody, and she dozes without thought or effort.

The pink of the sunlight through the wide windows shifts slowly to orange, and then yellow, patterns creeping across the room, all awash in hazy early morning light. Far below, the castle slowly comes awake, cook and bakers setting the fires aglow in the kitchen, stable hands tending their charges, early risers among the troops practicing in the early hours when the training yards are nearly empty. War and strife keep far away, held at bay by the jagged teeth of the Frostbacks and the rosy-fingered brush of a quiet morning.

When she rouses herself again, soft yellow light streams through the windows, and the sun has still not quite risen high enough to crest the mountains and herald in the day. Cullen watches her, mouth soft and eyes amber.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, and she tilts her chin up for a kiss.

“Good morning,” she returns against his lips, and feels them curve in a smile. She pulls away and pushes herself up on an elbow, smothering a yawn. “What time is it?”

“Still early, I’m afraid,” he answers, rueful. Vesper sighs and stretches, shaking off the covers and the lingering cobwebs of half-remembered dreams, and then reaches up to tug her already loose braid free. She sits cross-legged in bed, blankets pooling around her waist, and cards her fingers through the mess of her hair before braiding it back up again. Cullen watches her work, silent.

“What is it?” she asks when she has finished and he has still not said a word. She scrubs a hand across her face, wipes the sleep out of her eyes. He stares at her. “Cullen?”

“What? No, nothing, I only…” He is limned all gold in the yellowing morning light. “I never thought I would be so lucky.”

She stares at him a moment, then snorts and throws a pillow at him. He yelps as it smacks him in the face and falls into his lap.

“What was that for?”

“You sap,” she laughs. She is all aglow, inside and out, so full of light she could burst.

He stares at her a heartbeat longer, and then his lips purse and his eyes crinkle, and that is all the warning she has before he launches himself across the bed to tackle her.

“Cullen!” she yelps, and there is a moment of confusion, limbs and warmth and blankets between them, and then he is above her, arms bracketing her head.

“Take it back,” he says, grinning down at her.

She cannot smother her smile, and in all honesty she does not try. “No.”

He laughs and kisses her. “Fair enough.”

She leans up to kiss him again, and then he rolls aside and sits up. She sits too, tucking the mused hairs that have come loose from her fresh braid back behind her ears.

“I could get used to this, you know,” she tells him, throwing off the covers and hissing when her feet touch the cold floor.

“Throwing things at me before the sun is fully up?” he asks dryly, leaning back on his hands and watching her begin her morning stretches, and she pauses a moment to look at him, all soft and warm and gold and hers.

“Waking up with you,” she says, and she begins the slow series of stretches with which she starts each day, and misses the pink spreading across his face to the tips of his ears.

She does not, however, miss his response.

“As could I,” he murmurs, gentle and almost reverent, and she smiles to her bare feet and the thick rug beneath her and hopes to do exactly that.


End file.
